It's all so predictable. You knew that whoever President Obama nominated for the Supreme Court, you were going to get (insert name) is a liberal activist judge. (insert name) believes in legislating from the bench. (insert name) is outside of the mainstream, blah, blah, blah. . . . . . .

But some of the attacks are so nutty, they caught me by surprise. It's like Lily Tomlin said: "No matter how cynical you get, you can never keep up."

Here's Limbaugh: "So here you have a racist. You might -- you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist. ... Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one."On what does he base this accusation? Who the fuck knows? It's Rushworld. You don't need to back up your charges in Rushworld! In Rushworld, the very fact that Rush has said it makes it true.

Here's Pat Buchannan: The question is, does she believe in reverse discrimination against white males. It appears she does. And: "She is not that intelligent"

Yeah, she only finished Second in her class at Princeton.

Karl Rove: "I know lots of stupid people who went to ivy league schools." Yeah, but Sotomayor's grandfather wasn't on the board of trustees at Princeton.

And Tom Tancredo: She’s a member! She’s a member of La Raza! If you belong to an organization called La Raza, which is, from my point of view anyway, nothing more than a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses.

Oh, but it gets crazier!

Here's someone named Mark Krikorian: Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English. insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to. Ok, let me see if I got this. Judge Sotomayor's name is hard to pronounce (it isn't) so she should change the pronunciation to something more "natural"? You know what else is hard to pronounce? Krikorian! Maybe we should pronounce it more naturally, like nin·com·poop (nĭn'kəm-pōōp')

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Here's Wendy long of the "Judicial Confirmation Network": On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America's firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas.

Wow! going to the 9/11 well already, eh? That totally doesn't look at all desperate!

here's Jeffery Rosen of the New Republic: Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to a range of people who have worked with her, nearly all of them former law clerks for other judges. . . Most are Democrats but nearly none of them raved about her.

What does that even mean? Nearly none? Is that even a real thing? And doesn't that mean that some did rave about her? And does it matter either way, since these possibly fictitious people were clerks for different judges?

Why can't we just let this one go? She's obviously qualified. Can't we all for once just say, good choice, Mr. President, and confirm her? Why is it so important to be seen as obstructionists that you would gin up these phony objections to a perfectly fine candidate? Who is going to benefit from this? Do you really think that if you somehow succeed in blocking her appointment that Barack Obama will then turn around and nominate a Scalia clone? Sonia Sotomayor is about as moderate an apointee as you're going to see. Just shut the fuck up and let's have the confirmation hearings.